Continuity and transformation: the institutions of the Beijing government, 1912–1928

The period of the Beijing government of Republican China (1912–1928) occurred after the 1911 Revolution that toppled the imperial system and before the rule of the Nanjing Nationalist government. For modern China, it was an era of frequent trial and error in implementing political systems, as well as a significant phase of institutional transition following the New Policy reforms of the late Qing. Many twists and turns during this period of historical evolution stemmed from problems of the late Qing political reform. The three major issues occurring during the 1912–1928 era, namely the legitimacy of the government, the relationship between its legislative and executive branches, and the relationship between the central government and the provinces, were all dominated by the profound influence of traditional Chinese political and cultural frameworks. All of this made the 1912–1928 era more complicated than the late Qing period, increased the difference between one stage of institutional change and another, and accelerated the change in political systems while also broadening the choices available. Therefore, we should not only focus on the complex contention among all parties, but also acquire a deeper understanding of the limits imposed upon institutional renovation by tradition and circumstances through examination of the institutional adaptations behind the chaotic partisan politics.     

Local territorial attachment in times of jurisdictional consolidation

Many European countries are changing political boundaries at the local government level. Reforms consolidating local jurisdictions have recently been implemented in a number of countries, and more mergers/amalgamations are ongoing. We examine whether citizens' attachment to their local political unit is affected when municipal maps are redrawn. Our study is based on a dataset from Danish local governments with survey data from before and after a major reform of municipal mergers, and the traditional endogeneity problems are thereby circumvented. Drawing on Scannell and Gifford's tripartite model of person, place and process, we find that person characteristics affect local territorial attachment as well as the intersection between places of residence and the processes leading to the new jurisdiction. It is not an increase in the absolute size of the municipality (i.e., place) or the amalgamation as such (i.e., process) that affects the level of attachment, but rather the relative size of the former municipality compared to the new municipality and thereby the specifics of the redrawing of boundaries. When smaller municipalities are amalgamated with larger municipalities, the local territorial attachment decreases among citizens living in the smaller municipalities but not among citizens living in the larger municipalities.     

Patronage or Participation? Community‐based Natural Resource Management Reform in Sub‐Saharan Africa

This article examines the institutional factors that account for the outcome of efforts to decentralize control over natural resources to local communities. It focuses on the political nature of institutional processes associated with decentralization in sub‐Saharan Africa through a comparative analysis of wildlife management reforms in seven east and southern African countries. Institutional reforms are largely dependent on state authorities' patronage interests, which in turn are shaped by the relative economic value of wildlife, the degree of central control over commercial utilization, and the accountability of governance institutions. Our findings have a range of practical implications for the design of CBNRM initiatives and institutional reform strategies.     

The Politics of Service Delivery Reform

This article identifies the leaders, the supporters and the resisters of public service reform. It adopts a principal–agent framework, comparing reality with an ‘ideal’ situation in which citizens are the principals over political policy‐makers as their agents, and policy‐makers are the principals over public service officials as their agents. Reform in most developing countries is complicated by an additional set of external actors — international financial institutions and donors. In practice, international agencies and core government officials usually act as the ‘principals’ in the determination of reforms. The analysis identifies the interests involved in reform, indicating how the balance between them is affected by institutional and sectoral factors. Organizational reforms, particularly in the social sectors, present greater difficulties than first generation economic policy reforms.     

美国进步运动研究评述

从研究方法的角度看,国外主要是美国学界关于进步运动的研究大体可分为专题研究、综合研究与比较研究。特别是在20世纪70年代以来,进步运动研究超越民族国家范畴,在跨国比较研究方面取得了重大进展。从构成进步运动的主体看,19世纪末20世纪初的美国进步运动是由复杂多样的改革运动组成的,得到不同的变革力量的倡导与支持。作为改革的进步派不能简单地以阶级或阶层划线,他们因不同的问题忽而协同作战,转而又互为敌寇或各自为战。尽管进步运动具有多样性,但并不排斥其一致性或共性的存在。从进步运动的目标与内容看,它是一场新的历史条件下重建民主与资本主义的社会政治运动,而作为支持进步运动的意识形态,即进步主义,究其实质,是属于自由主义范畴的。作为全国范围内的首次变革运动,进步运动奠定了现代美国政治、经济与文化的基础。     

Local government and the meanings of political representation: A case study of Bologna between 1860 and 1915

Since the early nineteenth century political opposition became a central concept of political representation in constitutional monarchies. While this concept marked the political language of unified Italy on the national level, in local administration the legitimacy of political opposition remained an issue of dispute, as illustrated in this analysis of the political language in Bologna's local council. Local perceptions of national events, like the government's reaction to Garibaldi's unsuccessful Mentana-campaign, assumed major symbolic meaning in local politics and challenged traditional understandings of municipal administration by introducing the concept of political opposition. In Bologna, after Rome the second city of the former Papal State, the Moderates were able to grow into a position of political hegemony after the Unification of Italy and remained the predominant political force also after Italy's “parliamentary revolution” of 1876 and the electoral reforms of the 1880s. As a consequence of its limited influence on the local administration, Bologna's Left defined its ideological profile earlier and more clearly than the Left in other parts of Italy and integrated issues of national importance into local political discourse. Analysing the relationship between central administration and periphery, the article reveals the development of political language and the changing meanings of political representation between Unification and World War One and explains on this basis the escalation of social and political conflict in Finesecolo Italy.     

中国历史上的两次社会转型式改革

我国封建时代一些持续不断的改革基本上是修补式的、局部的、单项的改革,而社会制度转型方面的改革只有商鞅变法和戊戌变法,商鞅变法是我国封建时代唯一成功的社会转型式改革。戊戌变法拉开了中国第二次社会转型的序幕,当代改革是戊戌变法以来面向现代化的未竟之社会转型的延续。     

Financial Deregulation in Japan

This article examines the process of financial deregulation in Japan and asks: what are the prospects for future reform of Japan's financial sector? In the past, reform of Japan's financial sector has been slow and incremental as various vested interests, including political interests, negotiated specific compromise outcomes rather than sweeping changes. This article argues that, in spite of recently announced reforms, change will continue to be gradual and piecemeal because the institutional structures which in the past worked against any rapid response to pressures for change are still in place.     

‘A strong and prosperous condition’ — the geography of state building and social reform in Peter the Great's Russia

The point is often made that the rise of the modern state in Europe provided models which have been influential, if not actually copied, across much of the rest of the world. In Russia during the reign of Peter the Great (1682–1725), not only was the tsar aware of the European experience of state building, but consciously strove to base many of his political and social reforms on European models. Peter aimed at sweeping reform of the Russian state and society in the attempt to bring them into the modern world. The paper argues that the reforms were necessarily geographical, involving an attempt radically to reconstruct the country's economic and social geography. The focus is upon the spatial implications of reform, including the founding and development of the city of St. Petersburg as an experiment in social reconstruction. In the event, Peter's success was only partial, and the end product quite different from the models which had influenced his reforms. It is argued that this relative failure derived not only from the widespread resistance to reform but also from geographical, social and cultural circumstances peculiar to Russia. Greater scholarly sensitivity to the social and cultural contexts in which state building occurs might stimulate more cross-cultural and comparative perspectives and enrich this important area of social theory.     

SOCIAL CHANGE BY COMPROMISE?

The article raises the question of how a person argues for social change by compromise. The study is about the leading theorist of the reformist Swedish Social Democratic Party (SAP), Ernst Wigforss, and how he argues for a compromise in the relations between capital and labour. My hypothesis is that social change is argued as necessary, possible, and desirable. The guiding idea for the analysis is to use Quentin Skinner’s understanding of political thought and its expression as a political manoeuvre bounded by a historically given context. However, the latter needs to be specified as an analytical concept, as well as audience and interest. Despite his efforts Wigforss failed to create an agreement about new relations between capital and labour. His problem situation and his efforts to work through the problem mirror a general political problem, the possibilities of reformism to convert the existing society on crucial issues. More specifically, however, in his effort to redefine what the interest of each party should be, Wigforss had to consider the character of the object of conflict he was addressing, as this determined what the interest of each party was, and the sort of compromise that might be reached.     

The aftermath of an election crisis: Kenyan attitudes and the influence of individual-level and locality violence

How does violent conflict affect social and political attitudes? To answer this question I pair Kenyan survey and violence data for the time period following the country's December 27th 2007 national election. I find that respondents who personally experienced electoral violence are less likely to express certain forms of inter-personal and institutional trust than those individuals who did not. The association is not universally powerful, however. First, noteworthy differences emerge between populations who relocated as a result of post-election conflict and those who did not. Differences between these groups suggest that internal migration in the wake of tragedy influenced the Kenyan social landscape. In addition to personal exposure to electoral conflict, I test how local level violence may indirectly condition Kenyan political attitudes. Across all models, individual-level exposure to violence has the most consistent influence upon opinions, although district level effects emerge in analyses without survey respondent ethnicity controls. This finding suggests that living in a setting of regional insecurity does not have as important an effect on certain political views as personal victimization.     

Adaptation,interaction and urgency: a complex evolutionary economic geography approach to leisure

Local and regional governments in western European peripheral areas aim to spur leisure-led regional development. We explore planning for leisure by applying an evolutionary economic geography (EEG) approach from a complexity perspective. We identify conditions which enable and constrain leisure development and its effects on the region as a whole. This means combining the local level of individual adaptations with the institutional setting and with the regional scale. We examine the Dutch province of Fryslân and explore by means of case study analysis how current leisure development processes can be explained in a complex evolutionary manner. We explore economic novelty as a result of individual adaptations; how such adaptations through interactions create emerging spatial patterns; how these spatial patterns form self-organizing new types of order; and the way this process is dependent on previous paths whilst also creating new pathways. Our findings show that although development is dependent on individual adaptations often stemming from a few actors, for such adaptations to have an effect on the region requires a connectivity between actors and a sense of urgency amongst those actors. Using a complex EEG approach allows us to explain leisure-led regional development as the product of these conditions. This can help planners deal with the complexity and unpredictability of this process, focusing not on a desired end goal as such, but on creating the conditions in which a more autonomous development can take place.     

Filling the Institutional Void in Rural Land Markets in Southern China: Is there Room for Spontaneous Change from Below?

Deng Xiaoping's market reforms have unleashed an irresistible drive towards urban expansion in China over the last three decades. Yet despite the relentless expansion of urban boundaries and the rapid growth of a property market in China, land transactions that involve the surrender of land leases by Chinese peasants are conducted in an unstable institutional setting. Increasingly, people are questioning the existing regulatory framework for rural land transactions, with the result that an institutional void is threatening to open up. This article focuses on one of the most important spontaneous efforts to fill this void in recent years: the Nanhai land‐based shareholding cooperative experiment in southern China. This is a story of institutional change at the grassroots level. The article identifies the source of institutional entrepreneurship, evaluates the dynamics of the insider‐driven process, and explains how and why the experiment is failing. An ineffective monitoring mechanism, growing conflict over the allocation of returns, a changing social landscape, and pecuniary temptation all play a role, while the ad hoc nature of the experiment also fails to instill the confidence and stability necessary for long‐term investment.     

18-20世纪俄国的国家与现代化

传统社会向现代社会的过渡常常导致社会冲突,解决冲突的方式不一,其中以改革和革命为主.当改革不足以解决尖锐的社会冲突之时,革命便不可避免,旧制度随之寿终正寝,而由国家实施的改革模式则力主法律的继承性和合理化变化.19-20世纪初的俄国则成为这样两种社会发展模式博弈的舞台.俄国通过革命解决了当时的社会冲突,其革命模式对许多亚非拉国家产生了深远影响.然而,这些采取革命方式解决冲突的国家多以失败告终,不仅未能步入现代化道路,反而使国家陷入混乱状态.现代化进程顺利与否完全取决于其自身的历史条件与外部因素,盲目效仿他人不足取.     

Poor Relief,Taxes and the First Universal Pension Reform: the origin of the Swedish welfare state reconsidered

In the year 1900, Sweden probably had the oldest population in the contemporary world. It was also the first nation to implement a universal pension system in 1913. The universal character in early social legislation has certainly been decisive for the development of the Swedish welfare state. This alternative has not been self-evident. Why did the reforms turn universal, when the continental model, the Bismarck social security system, was exclusively directed at industrial workers? Research has concentrated on demographic factors and growing demands for social security, or on the fact that Sweden was still a predominantly rural society with about 2,400 local authorities. This article examines the development of social legislation in the light of local government expenditures and incomes, and suggests an overlooked possibility: the formulation of the first universal national social security reform was a redistributional response to uneven distribution of incomes and general expenditures among the rural districts in Sweden.     

International Assistance to the Former Soviet Union: Conditions and Transitions1

Since the demise of the Soviet Union the newly independent states (NIS) have attempted the wholesale reform of their economic, political, and social institutions. With varying levels of success they have sought to create new institutions or reorganize old institutions, often so as to mirror similar institutions in western Europe and North America. Many nations and international organizations have sought to influence these transitions with technical assistance, foreign aid, concessional loans, and trade/investment promotion programs. In this article we attempt to bridge the conceptual, analytic, and empirical gaps between those who argue that external influences remain unimportant and those who believe that international organizations and foreign governments can support reforms. Specifically, we argue that although external assistance can play a positive role in the successful consolidation of political and economic reforms, the contribution of external assistance to the post-Soviet transitions has been limited by the institutional arrangements, technical proficiency, and political motivations of the aid providers. We thus analyze patterns of foreign assistance to demonstrate that implicit conditionalities imposed by aid donors upon recipient countries—with regard to geographic distribution, program priorities, timing, and graduation criteria—often force recipients to comply with reform agendas that may or may not be favorable for the recipient.     

Sami Rights and Sami Challenges

In this article the authors analyse the conflict in contemporary Sami politics in Sweden. To understand this conflict a historical perspective is necessary, and the authors reconstruct the ideas and beliefs in the public debate that has legitimized a system of Sami rights over more than a century, and analyze the challenges to these by the Sami movement. Two parallel themes are discussed: the first deals with the continuity and change of the Swedish Sami policy, where the authors show how ideas and beliefs concerning the Sami have limited the possibilities of political action. The second theme focuses on the political mobilization of the Sami in Sweden and their challenges of the established view of the Sami in official policy. One of the conclusions made is that it is of importance to grant indigenous peoples, like the Sami, some kind of secure political platform from which they could participate in the democratic procedure and legitimately counter‐act the power of the nation states in which they live.     

Privatization and Democratization in Lithuania: A Case Study of Who Benefits in Siauliai

While Lithuania had undertaken substantial political and economic reform prior to independence, the greatly accelerated pace of privatization following the restoration of same resulted in the emergence of a business class at the local level controlling most of the economic wealth. Concurrent with the process, the state became increasingly less able to either subsidize local governments or assist those hurt most by the reforms. A case study ofSiauliai, Lithuania demonstrates that while the new local business class is overrepresented in the city's government other social elements are not without political voice. Indeed, there appears to be substantial evidence of an "urban regime" linking political office seekers and business interests in an interdependent relationship permitting the former a significant degree of latitude in responding to the demands of pensioners and other citizen groups who make up the majority of their political base.